What A Heavy Week!

.:I Knew You Were Trouble When You Walked In...:.

Because I have no shame, I went ahead and actually made some silly images this past week. The first one was in response to Kim Jong Un's mystery smartphone. After due research, I found out what the brand was!

Not very proud of that joke, but whatever.

But more importantly, in another story, there has been some buzz about Victoria Court's #WhereNext? campaign, as a priest wanted the billboard in Pasay taken down, citing that the billboards could lead to immorality. Of course. Because a billboard that doesn't feature one half-naked model implying Victoria Court would create a direct link to people who don't know what Victoria Court is usually famous for, right? 

Would you prefer a Sogo "So Clean... So Good" billboard instead?

Well, whatever. I figured that to prove that these billboards don't necessarily have to lead to sex, I could create my own version. After all, how could anyone possibly think of anything dastardly with this one I cooked up?

Holy all night long.

.:Insanity Guaranteed:.

Pretty crazy week at work, but one of the best respites I had was when the fine people at Ford took a few of us for a ride to Binondo, where we ended up meeting the very famous Ivan Man-Dy, who took us on a walking food tour along good old Chinatown.

I feel weird knowing I'm the only one without a driver's license in this shot.

Now, this was far from my first dance at having a food tour in Binondo. Despite that, I wanted to see exactly how different my makeshift tour for friends was from a professional tour as done by Ivan, and the differences, while definitely clear, also highlighted how similar my tour was, in that we essentially hit mostly the same destinations.

It was great that I rode with Neil of 99.5 RT fame to Binondo, really. We had a lot of catching up to do, and he brought me up to speed why I would want a Ford for myself the moment I get a license.

New Po Heng. Dong Bei. The Carvajal street market. Ho-Land. Except for the fried siopao stop, this particular version of the food tour was, step by step, pretty much the same as the last one I ran for Chad and Gail. I wasn't complaining, though, because Ivan's wealth of knowledge not just about the food but even cultural quirks we would take for granted when we focus just on chowing down, really.

Having said that, there's absolutely no reason to miss the lumpia, the oyster cake, the fried chicken, the dumplings, the fried siopao, the hopia, and all the other amazing stuff you would find in Binondo if you ever end up in the area! My only complaint, though, is that White Rabbit is now really a contraband item, and you can't find it where we did last time in Carvajal.

And of course, aside from kiamoy, lest we forget, one of my favorite things about going to Binondo and Dong Bei in particular would be their ever-awesome Wong Lo Kat drink. It just really takes the heatiness away to a whole different level!

#WhereNext?

Project 52 (23/52): On "What's Your Mix?" (And Why It's Much Ado About Nothing)

.:Project 52 (23/52): On "What's Your Mix?" (And Why It's Much Ado About Nothing):.

Does this offend you? Unless you're a mathematician, probably not.

Yeah, I still don't understand the mathematics involved that results in a lady with 80/20 blood lineage, but who am I to question the mathematical process involved in determining these things?

I touched on this briefly in my blog yesterday, and while I was quick to join poking fun at the whole thing, I certainly didn't feel outraged by the ad, to say the least. Having worked in advertising in some capacity or some other for so many years, I tend to feel for the guys who made this campaign, because clearly, they had the best of intentions when they made this (Not that intent is ever an excuse for anything.). This was probably 90% inspiration and 10% perspiration, and that's why we arrived at this copy...

Hmm. Needs a little more Godwin...

There were unfortunate implications there, but the intent is clearly the reverse of what the knee-jerk slacktivists are trying to say: more than Pinoys needing a mix of foreign blood to be a success, the copy of the ad implies that foreigners need a mix of Pinoy blood to be a success. It seems like people were 90% furious, and 10% reading when they decided to get worked up over this.

Semantics aside, I'm sure the copy writers for this campaign didn't intend to channel Voldemort and notions of a brown Aryan race when they made this. Clearly, the campaign is simply about mix. Fil-Am rappers do this all the time when they talk about the intertwining of cultures, and how they have to deal with it every single day.

50% milk, 50% coco puff?

Despite all that, whether they meant to say that success is brought about by having a mix of foreign blood, or by having a mix of Filipino blood, it definitely sends the wrong message and yet again reeks of the kind of Filipino Patriots® I frequently poke fun at: the Pinoy equivalent of the redneck American whose only counter-argument to every single thing wrong about their country is, "if you hate it so much, then why don't you just leave?"

While one can be proud of one's heritage, one's heritage in and by itself is not a cause for pride. The achievements of every Filipino, great or small, in no way reflects upon our own achievements. The beauty of it is, it works the same way with every Filipino's failures. We make our own luck. What a fascinating concept!

Is it something to get all worked up over, though? No, I honestly don't think so. I'm just 50% amused, and 50% meh when it comes to the whole "issue" because outside of bad copy writing, this isn't nor should it be a national pride issue. At all.

Look. I know it's very delectable to pretend that Bayo was trying to undermine Filipino pride by insinuating that we need to have foreign blood to be worth anything, but not only is that a very uncharitable reading of the issue at hand, it's also missing the forest for the trees: having Filipino blood shouldn't give us a free pass to success, nor should having foreign blood. It really boils down to what we do as Filipinos that define our ability to succeed, far more than our ethnic heritage.

This is much ado about nothing. There is no need to crucify Bayo as though they are upholding colonial mentality when they are clearly (and unfortunately) trying to imply the reverse: a kind of brown Aryan bloodline that guarantees nothing but prosperity to anyone who is lucky enough to have Filipino blood in them. In fact, the campaign talks about "mix," but at no point does it attempt to say that anything "pure" has less merit.

If anything, I can imagine a far worse backlash if they tried to so much as put primacy in someone being a "pure" Filipino. It goes against the concept of their ad campaign, but that's what you get when you try to fit a square peg in a round hole. Clearly, fashion mix and ethnic mix don't mix with each other well. The "palahian" uproar from the feminist sector should make that immensely clear.

When you have random xenophobic Filipinos hating Solenn Heussaff or Jinri Park or Grace Lee for daring to identify themselves as being Filipino, you kind of feel a wee bit weirded out by the double standard when we take every chance to remind South Korea that Sandara Park of 2NE1 used to be a TV and movie star in the Philippines, and the sheer amount of sourgraping this nation engages in everytime the Azkals lose a game. Our standards of calling someone "one of us" are just so arbitrary it makes my head spin sometimes. It's 50% funny and 50% pathetic.

Sometimes, you could almost imagine Erik Spoelstra wondering why all the Filipino support went to Jessica Sanchez in American Idol.

"LeBron, you're not eating a pretzel, so stop choking, dammit! Pinoy pride!"

Besides, if a throwaway ad campaign from a brand is enough to make you call your own Filipino pride into question, then maybe the basis for your pride doesn't run quite deep enough as your wounded pride (Or is it ego?) leads you to believe it does.

Was Bayo's campaign a good one? 50% yes and 50% no (Okay, this percentage running gag is annoying even me, so I should stop now.). Logistically, it was poorly worded and insensitive to the implications of their poor choice of words. Whether you read it as a gateway brown Aryan statement or as a further affirmation of colonial mentality, it completely undercut the inherently good message of the campaign: it's good to mix. It's just that there's that nagging feeling of, "but what if you don't mix?" Is it bad? Is it better? Inquiring minds need to know!

Not addressing that question properly apparently backfired on Bayo, on top of the common but irrefutable complaint about Filipino pride boiling down purely to bloodline rather than actual merits.

On the other hand, we're talking about Bayo now. A lot. Brand awareness is at an all-time high. Positive or negative as it may be, there is now a dialogue going on about what it means to be Filipino; about why we support the Azkals and Jessica Sanchez but turn our backs on Erik Spoelstra and Rob Schneider.

I can think of a reason why we do, though.

While the conversation starter is admittedly pedestrian in nature, now, we are beginning to understand that this discussion on identity is a very important discussion to have at this point where the world is becoming a global village more and more. For all the good and bad this globalization brings, how does one remain Filipino, and how does one demonstrate and inspire pride in our heritage? These things do not merely happen in and by themselves: the how is a very important factor that needs consideration.

What does it mean to be a Filipino? Is it our bloodline ala Jasmine Trias or Tia Carrere? Or is it more about our desire to identify with being Filipino ala Grace Lee or Erwan Heussaff?

What does it mean to be a success? Is Manny Pacquiao a success in boxing because he's a Filipino, or is he a success because he worked hard at it, and he just happened to be a Filipino? Does the latter take away from Filipino pride, or simply remind us that we need to look at Filipino pride in a more nuanced and all-encompassing manner?

If only for the fact that now, these questions do get asked, and hopefully, get closer to being answered satisfactorily, then yeah, I think Bayo did good, in spite of itself.

If I may be so bold as to suggest to whoever is running the advertising for Bayo, I think the easiest way to turn this around would be to ride the wave of your campaign's memetic value. Don't take the campaign too seriously, and revel in the absurdity of it, while encouraging the insightful dialogue you've already unintentionally instigated. The momentum is now in your hands to make something positive out of all this.

If I could paraphrase Lourd De Veyra, this all boils down to one simple thing: walang basagan ng mix. All this navel-gazing taken into consideration, though, I think it's still boss to poke fun at the whole "controversy"...

Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all week!

Independence Day, With A Twist...

.:Weird Note...:.

Looking at my schedule at Campus, wherein I find out that I'm on air Mondays to Fridays, from 9 to 12 noon with Joe Spinner here on Campus 99.5, I noticed something very odd...

... no, it's not just the fact that I've been officially rechristened as "Sparky" on the air. It's...

I dunno about you, but I just find being called "Joe's Sparky" being really, really weird...

.:NOT Love On The Locks...:.

In the spirit of Independence Day, before going to the station, I wanted to get my feet wet at actually learning how to pick locks. It seemed like a good idea at the time, really...

And for the most part, I thought so, too. I was doing a decent job, and with one hand, free, it seemed like a good escape so far, so after a bit of fiddling around and with a broken pick to show for it, I decided to reach for the key...

... except, ermm, there was no key.

There I was, the budding escapologist, trying to escape from handcuffs, and only half-successful. Worse, I had to go to work with one of my hands still cuffed, and it was only a matter of time before people would notice it. Hades, even people at next-door station, Magic 89.9, noticed. And they had Dr. Belo as their guest. Not the most brilliant first impression ever. The cuffs led to the obvious "kinky" gags by Mojo Jojo, especially when he found out the keys were with another guy...

So I walked into the booth, and John Hendrix was still handling hosting duties while Joe Spinner was trying to prepare some stuff. When sir Joe finally got on board, he started asking about the conspicuous white pillow sheet I placed on my right hand. Soon enough, I showed it to him, and the "keep it locked here" jokes commenced on air. We collectively had a ton of lock or key or some other similar pun throughout our ad libs, and despite bloopers galore, we had a pretty interesting show.

(Though none of the bloopers were as bad as sir Joe's "How about a *BRAND OMITTED* Meal on me? As in physically on me?" quip, or my "And that's Evidence with 'Urbandub,'", despite actually introducing "The Fight Is Over"...)

What made the show even more interesting was when my partner, Jay Mata, told me he had the key with him (How it ended up with him, I'll never know. And no, get your minds out of the gutter.), somehow, I managed to ask MM, an Airchecker, if she'd like to be handcuffed for a while until Jay got to the station. So for the next hour and a half, I was handcuffed to MM!

,

Yes, we boarded with cuffs.

So yeah, it was quite a fun-filled experience, to say the least (And not to worry, I cleared this with My Beloved, lest I encounter her fury.=P), so MM and I were a package deal for about an hour and a half, as sir Joe would introduce himself as "Joe Spinner with Sparky with MM... whether MM likes it or not." The other Aircheckers in the booth like Jiff and Tabel were worried if either of us had to go to the washroom, and thankfully, that issue never came up.

Sir Joe even figured that we could make a series out of this, where we'd get celebrity guests handcuffed to me and ask them *really* tough questions and they can never walk out on us, since they're cuffed to me. I even took the time out to interview MM in between songs, making sure that I wouldn't have to worry about anyone waiting for me outside the station after the show was over.

I was even teasing her that Jay got a flat, or that he dropped the key on the way, and you could see that she was adamant on still going to class in UST with me cuffed to her than simply not attend class at all. Ah, yes. The quintessential model student...

Soon enough, Jay Mata arrived, and after one last look at the handcuffed tandem...

... we finally took the keys and unlocked the handcuffs, thereby celebrating Independence Day in a very unique way. Nothing like a bonda... err... bonding session to start off your morning. She left shortly after the show, but it was all good, nonetheless. I think I made a new good friend with that hour and a half long adventure.

Afterwards, I had lunch with someone from Aircheck Batch 3, Lee (Sir Joe and sir John were busy.), and it was interesting, all the same. Genki girls rock. Heh.

Short Update Due To Constraints...

.:Detailed Tournament Report Will Have To Wait...:.

... but a summarised one is right here, for those interested in how well my new version of Doomsday worked out. It took me to second place, so it can't be *that* bad...

.:It Never Changes...:.

So some guys in the office were singing "Kahit Kailan" by South Border a while ago.

When they got to the highest note of the song, nobody hit it.

It was funny hearing ten voices get higher and higher, then one of them suddenly sing ala-Pavarotti when they got to the highest point of the song, while everyone else just choked.

.:Financial Turmoil:.

I'm so thankful to Rowena that she's been so supportive of me throughout this sudden windfall of headaches. I'm really happy she's there for me. I can never thank my Beloved enough for making me so happy amid all these setbacks. She was so sweet today, in fact, as she reminded me that she understands what I'm going through right now...

I have to compete for my gigs with other magicians as of late, and not to mention the fact that Ogie Diaz is no longer doing showbiz updates for my company, ergo, no more editing of his playlists, which was a nice extra money to work with...

Add to that the fact that my tuition for this semester in ADMU really caught me off-guard... gah.

I guess it's a good idea to mention to everyone reading that I actually do hosting and magic shows as a sideline, right? Anyone in need of either can reach me here with ease. I also do writing work, and have a few connections if you want commissioned art.

Any help for acquiring some funds to bridge the gap I'm going to be looking at soon would be very appreciated.

Let's Talk Politics...

.:James Yap, All Set To Endorse Ping Lacson?!?:.

Apparently, the philandering husband of Kris Aquino, James Yap, is most likely going to endorse Ping Lacson in his bid for senator.

This is reportedly because James believes in Hope, and according to Lacson, “Kapag may Hope, may pag-asa.”

Lacson's platform is right up James' alley. Eh diba, “SiPing ang kinabukasan?” Di ba, dyan naman magaling si James? Sa pakikipagsiping?

I don't know about you, but there's just something ridiculous about all the hoopla over Kris and James and Hope. It's an overblown domestic situation that we could've done without. Well, now that it's out in the open, Senator Lacson gets all the added exposure that he needs.

.:A.S.O.:.

I find it laughable how easy it is to forget favors and grudges when people decide to cross party lines.

I am not a fan of Angara, Sotto, and much less Oreta. Despite that, I find it amusing how Rez Cortez's FPJPM group made a jingle lashing out at the trio for moving to the administration. This senatorial race has all the makings of a kcuf-up, I swear.

You have the three people who used to vow to bring down GMA now being endorsed by the latter. You have a senatoriable who has no clue what he's doing in Cesar Montano. You have a guy who uses a lousy pun and advertises so much yet no one still knows who the Hades he is in Pichay. You have Mr. Aloof himself in Defensor. Then, you have the stalwart opposition people and guys like John Osmena who love jumping back and forth whenever it's convenient for them to do so.

This is going to be one mess, and you don't need to be a fortune teller to know that.

.:Pick, Pac, Boo!:.

Well, well, well. Looks like people are a lot smarter than we give ourselves credit for.

In the recent boxing extravaganza in Cebu featuring Jaca, Gorres, and Bautista, Manny Pacquiao, who came to watch his contemporaries, was met by a presumably jarring chorus of boos, expressing displeasure over his decision to run for public office.

I'm highly amused that he's surprised this happened. Look at him. He runs, then expresses his intention to focus on his training for his next fight. It's rather obvious that he simply isn't prepared to serve his country politically, and I am not in the least bit surprised this is happening to him.

Pacquiao is a successful boxer who is overrated, in my humble opinion. He's no sacred cow, and now, he experiences how it is to be anything other than applauded, which is what he should have anticipated the moment he threw his hat into the political arena. I relish in having people prove to be smarter than he thinks and simply not let him win. He's not ready, and I don't think he should be meddling in politics when he has no idea what to do in the first place.

According to him, his intent is only to attend sessions and vote “yes” or “no” whenever he has to. That doesn't sound like a guy who has a definite plan to help his city out. It's ridiculous for him to think that good intentions are enough to carry him through. He could've instead used those massive campaign funds by helping people find work or something more worthwhile than just this.

I know a lot of Pacman haters have wanted to see him get knocked out in a long time, but I think this is the loss I'd rather put my money on.

Of course, if he wins, then General Santos loses. Big time.